


Things Youngsters Do

by seashadows, WikdSushi



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse Warning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 18:43:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WikdSushi/pseuds/WikdSushi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When young Ori sells Kíli a kiss, it opens up a box of family secrets Kíli blows off its hinges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Youngsters Do

The adults were talking. They sat around the table in the Council Chamber, where Uncle Thorin liked to hold important meetings and, sometimes, great feasts. This time, the feast was for Mr. Balin, who had come for a visit from the south. Kíli hadn't seen him since he was small, or at least smaller, and was glad to know he was as tall as one of the adults, even if he was only 40.

Fires reflected from the chamber's polished granite walls and eased the winter chill so high in the mountains. Still, Kíli burrowed deeper into his fur wrap and sighed. Through his cushion, the floor felt far too hard, and though Fíli, a whole five years older, could pay attention to what Mum and Uncle and Mr. Balin and Mr. Dwalin were talking about, Kíli would have much rather been in his room, throwing darts or reading or sneaking a frig in the open air. Even better, he could have been above ground, in the stables, helping to look after the ponies---

A pebble smacked him in the cheek. He looked around and found his friend Ori poking a slingshot out of his blanket. Kíli scowled, and Ori motioned with his fingers and sneaked out of his worn wool blanket and away from his ancient da, Rori, who grabbed his leg at the last instant and nearly tripped him. Kíli looked at his lap, though Uncle Thorin glanced Ori's way, as did Dori, Ori's eldest brother (who kept offering to take him in and kept getting told to piss off). Ori was just short of 40 and sweet and not much of a fighter, except with his slingshot, and clever, and could draw anything, not that his da appreciated it much.

"I need to go to the necessary," Kíli said in his mother's ear, and she shooed him along. Fíli poked his tongue out, and Kíli returned it, but he grabbed Ori's arm (even Rori wouldn't argue much with the _princes_ at a formal feast) and hurried to Thorin's study, where they weren't supposed to go, even though there was plenty of light from the phosphorescent quartz set in the walls for them to see without breaking anything, or ruining the (really rather boring) books from all over Middle Earth that lined the enormous bookshelves.

Ori sat right up on the desk and from under his jumper pulled his old, ragged book of vellum, the one he'd spent hours stitching together with his mam's good awl and needles and a long piece of sinew. Kíli hardly ever saw him without it, and sat down to watch him draw a charcoal picture of Rori, the bastard, sitting in the middle of a fire.

"Didn't see Nori tonight," Kíli said as Ori scribbled, his rage at every knock and thump and drunken punch from his da pouring out through his fingers with grace Kíli could only envy.

"Picked up again. Mining without a license." Ori sighed and put his head on Kíli's shoulder.

Kíli went still. In the past year, he had started going a little jumpy inside, like he was going to be sick with butterflies and gemstones, every time Ori touched him first. Which, really, was guaranteed at least once every time they saw each other. If Ori's da was ancient, his mam might as well be stone, and the two times Kíli had been to Ori's home, she had seemed mostly interested in pretending Ori didn't exist. Kíli remembered himself and put an arm around Ori, and smiled when Ori relaxed.

"I'll give you a kiss for a penny," Ori said, his voice muffled against Kíli's shoulder.

Kíli had a hand in his pocket, searching for a penny, before he had the sense to ask, "Why?"

Ori shrugged. "Why not?"

Kíli bit his lip. His heart had raced off in some insane direction, and he had a horrible feeling he would wake with wet sheets again come morning, but it was _Ori_. He had _dreamed_ of kissing Ori, who was shy and gentle and funny and handsome, and could belch even longer and louder than Fíli, and be sicker, too, once the ale set in.

He took out a penny and slapped it into Ori's hand. Ori gaped at it a moment, then stuffed it in his trousers and tucked away his vellum. They looked at each other. Ori's eyes, always easy to read, looked ready to pop out of his head. Kíli put out his arms at an awkward angle, then a more awkward one---

\--And yelped when Ori pushed him back against the desk and knocked their teeth together. Ori tried again, and it was slobbery, and made a mess of Kíli's chin, and Kíli got the tip of his tongue up Ori's nose. But in a few sloppy moments they pressed their mouths together. Kíli gripped the back of Ori's ragged jumper and whimpered as he closed his eyes. Ori made the most wonderful little grunts and held onto Kíli's hair. His vellum pressed against Kíli's chest, like part of Ori himself.

Too soon, Ori lifted his head and smiled. His whole mouth glistened with spit. Kíli smiled back and fingered one of the braids at Ori's temple.

"I'll do it again for sixpence," Ori said, lowering his eyes.

"I've got sixpence. At home."

Ori smiled like he was embarrassed and climbed off Kíli and the desk. He kissed his hand and ran out of the study.

Kíli lay there, confused, his trousers uncomfortably full. There was no reason for Ori to run off. Kíli was good for sixpence. He could get it tomorrow, and a sixpence kiss had to be longer than a penny one!

He sat up and felt something slide under his back, and that was when the inkwell shattered in an enormous spray of black all over the floor.

#

"Not another word about the rug," Uncle Thorin said when Kíli looked up from scrubbing the floor. "I've told you six times, it's coming from what you earn helping with the ponies. And you owe your mother an apology. She wove it especially for this room."

Kíli ground his scrub brush at a particularly nasty spot of ink and said, yet again, "Yes, Uncle."

"Now I'll ask again, what were you doing in here? You know you're not permitted, and it'll be a long time yet before you're allowed near any of my things after this."

"Ori's father was hurting him again. You saw. Why can't he live with Dori?"

"It's not my place to force a child from his home for the sake of strict parents---"

"But he's _told_ me, Thorin!" Kíli dropped his brush in the scrub bucket. "His da gets drunk and punches him to make him stop drawing!"

Uncle Thorin took a deep breath, like he was going to shout, but he let it go. "Kíli, I wouldn't do such a thing to you or your brother, but when a lad insists upon making sketches when there are chores to be done, he needs discipline."

"It's not like that!" Kíli wished he had the balls to fling inky water at Thorin for saying such a thing about Ori, but it would get him in more trouble, and he was already in a tender enough position.

"You shouldn't encourage him so much. You're lucky I haven't told Rori his son broke my inkwell---"

"He didn't. I was lying on it."

Thorin frowned. "Why were you lying on my desk?"

Kíli drew his lips into his mouth and went back to scrubbing the floor. He tried as hard as he could to ignore Thorin's footsteps, and Thorin crouching in front of him, though he could not so easily ignore it when Thorin took him by the chin and looked him in the eye.

"Were you fighting?"

"No. . . ."

"Then what?"

". . . H'kissedmeforap'nny."

"Say that again?"

Kíli swallowed, and couldn't look Thorin in the eye as he said, "Ori said he'd kiss me for a penny. So I gave him one. The inkwell sort of got knocked over."

He tensed for a shouting. After a few seconds, he opened one eye, only to find Uncle Thorin staring as though Kíli and Ori had run off to the Shire to get married.

"He said he'll give me another for sixpence," Kíli said, feeling rather as though he were poking an interesting sword wound with another sword.

". . . Why in Aulë's name did he want money? Rori's the meanest bastard ever to lay finger on a farthing, but he's not got cheap enough to whore his own son, has he?"

A burst of fire shot through Kíli's whole body, and he shoved Thorin as hard as he could, which was still not hard enough to land him on his back. "Don't you dare call Ori such a thing! Take it back!"

Thorin caught Kíli's wrists and lifted them over his head. Kíli knocked him a good one in the shin. Thorin rested a hand on his head.

"Ori is a good boy, lad, or I wouldn't permit you to be friends. Though I'm not so happy with this new development, either the money or the kissing."

" _I am!_ I'd kiss him for nothing if I wasn't so ugly!"

Which was the wrong thing to say, if Thorin pulling him nose-to-nose meant anything, and it usually did.

"Is that why he made you pay?"

Kíli shrugged. "S'why I'd make me pay."

After all, Ori was the best-looking bloke of anyone his age, even better-looking than Fíli, who was already starting to get some of his beard. Kíli, on the other hand, had a face like a Hobbit, and fought like an Elf (as most of his friends said of his archery). Ori had never said any such thing, but he always took out his vellum when Kíli started showing off to prove he was a real Dwarf. He said he was documenting for posterity, but he never showed anyone what he was drawing---

"Is that why _he_ made you pay? Are those the words that came out of his mouth?"

Kíli shook his head.

Thorin sighed and hugged him. "You can finish the floor in the morning. I'd like to talk to Balin a bit more before he falls asleep. Not a word of any of this to your mother, else she'll have your head _and_ Ori's, and if his father's gone 'round the bend, he doesn't need any more strife. Go see him before breakfast and get your penny back. No more kissing, though. I mean it."

Kíli hugged Thorin. "Thank you, Uncle." He stepped back. "But I want to kiss him."

Thorin rapped him on the head. "Not while you live under my roof, child! Now fly home before I set you to work again!"

Kíli knew better than to stand still when there was punishment to be had. Rather than do as told, though, he ran to the great gemstone courtyard outside the royal offices, and climbed inside an enormous stoneware pot that had been a gift from the thain of the Shire one year. Nobody really liked the pot, especially Thorin, but they had to keep it if they didn't want to face the Shire's military might (and all die of laughter, Kíli supposed).

For a while, he sat in the bottom of the pot, staring up towards the ceiling of the great cavern where they lived. It was too distant to see, as were most of the walls, yet it was only one part of one mountain in the entire range. Why Uncle Thorin wanted so much to take everyone back to Erebor someday, which was only a single mountain, and on the other side of the _world_ , made no real sense. However, if he went, Kíli supposed he'd have to go, too. He was a prince, after all. He curled up and rubbed his arms through his jumper, the good, thick one Mum had made from indigo wool, and hoped that when the time came, Ori could go, too.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Kíli heard everyone from the feast leave. He counted them, and only when the last of their footsteps vanished into the distance did he jump for the pot's lip. It took a few tries--he had got stuck in there more than once and had to be lifted out--but he managed to get a grip with one ink-stained hand, and hauled himself out, glad no-one was about to hear him grunt and curse.

Ori's house was only a little ways from his own. Though they were both members of the Line of Durin, and Thorin said Rori was not so poor as he acted, the house, built from the same chiseled granite as everyone else's, bore no decoration. Kíli only knew Ori's windowsill by location. (His own, on the other hand, bore a fine inlay of gold leaf and malachite, while Fíli's had red jasper.) He found a couple of empty crates near Ori's family's milk-goat, which kept quiet in exchange for a scratch about the horns, and climbed up to peek through Ori's window.

Ori lay sleeping, his frayed blankets pushed to his waist. He clutched his vellum to his chest. Kíli tapped the window. Ori snorted and flopped onto his back, which gave Kíli a clear view of the bogey in his nose. Kíli tapped harder.

"Ori!"

Ori scowled, his eyes still shut, and threw back his covers. To Kíli's surprise, he went straight for his door, so Kíli rapped once more, and Ori finally opened his eyes and hurried to open the window.

"What are you doing here?" he whispered. "Da's going to kill me if he sees you!"

"Thorin says I've got to get my penny back."

Ori hung his head. "I haven't got it."

Kíli leaned into his room. "Whaddya mean, you haven't got it? I only just gave it to you!"

"I haven't got it! I hid it."

"Then go find it."

Ori fell silent. He sat on the floor. Kíli took it as invitation and climbed inside to sit with him.

"Da made me promise not to tell anyone, not even Dori and Nori." Ori worried a broken stick of charcoal between his fingers. "Mam's dying. She's got maybe a week or two. I'm the one looking after her, mostly. Da's drunk up the money since she's been so ill." He looked at Kíli, barely a flicker of his eyes. "A penny's another day of broth for Mam, and some bread for me, if Da doesn't get to it first."

Kíli went numb, mind and body, as he understood what Ori had said.

"You could have asked me for some," he finally said after a dumb minute. "I'd have given you money. I've got lots." He stuffed a hand in his pocket for the three pence he had left, but Ori put his own hand over it.

"I can't take your money."

"You're my friend." Kíli pulled out his pennies and slapped them in Ori's palm. "You don't have to do anything for it. And your da's a bastard. I'm telling Thorin about this---"

Ori clapped his hand over Kíli's mouth. "Please! Don't. Da'll beat me blind."

Kíli started to tell him that was stupid. The way Ori stared at him, though, made him feel cold. He slung his arms over Ori's shoulders and pressed their foreheads together.

"I'll take care of you," he said. "Some way."

Ori rested his hands on Kíli's knees, one closed tight around his three pennies, the other pinching his charcoal stick like a magic wand. He touched his lips to Kíli's, and for a second, Kíli didn't feel ugly, or Elvish, or like the senseless second son behind the crown prince---

"Your Mam's croaking for-- _Durin's beard, boy!_ "

Kíli fell back even as Rori yanked Ori to his feet by the nightshirt. He felt sick as he leapt from the window. Ori's yelp followed him as he hit the ground, then came silence.

Terrible, terrible silence.

Still, Kíli didn't dare look back, in case it made things worse for both of them.

#

He hid under his blankets, wide awake, until cock-crow let him crawl out of bed and try to scrub the sensation of filth from his skin over the wash bucket. No matter how much cold water he used, though, it did nothing to change Ori's yelp, or the way Kíli ran like an insect at the first sign of danger. He was a prince of the realm, meant to protect anyone and everyone, but he could not even stop a man well in advance of 240 years from battering someone of only 39.

Well, he decided as he pulled a clean shirt over his head, as Uncle Thorin said every time he talked about returning to Erebor, wrongs were meant to be righted.

Kíli dressed as quick as he could, and ran to Ori's house before the cook had even got the coffee and oats on. He stopped short, though. The crates he had climbed lay in splinters, as though Rori had taken a war axe to them. The family milk-goat bleated to be milked. Kíli sidled close enough to scratch her head--she was a very nice goat--and struggled to work out a way to get to Ori's window to take him away. He needed to get a rope to the top of the house, but he had no hook. How in Mahar's name was he to drive a rope into solid stone, like an arrow into a target?

He blinked, and grinned. Another scratch to the goat's head, and Kíli bolted for home. He ran into the kitchen and collided with his mother, still in her dressing gown, who screamed.

"What are you doing, you little savage?" She pinched his cheeks. "You're in trouble to your eyeballs. That rug took me three months, never mind the cost of the wool. The moment breakfast is finished, it's straight to work for you, cleaning the henhouse."

"We've got servants for that!"

"Not for the next three months, we haven't!"

Kíli sagged. "Could I go practice some archery before breakfast, please?"

Mum sighed and turned him toward their small household armory. "Be back in half an hour, or so help me you won't see a bow for a week."

"Yes, Mum." Kíli winced when she smacked his arse, but he ran to the armory (despite Mum's shout not to run in the house) and opened the archery cabinet.

Above his bow hung a larger one with a much heavier draw. He took it down and drew back the string. It slipped from his fingers and the bow clattered to the floor. He stuck his stinging fingers in his mouth and glared at the stupid heavy bow. Still, his bow was not nearly suited to what he had in mind, so he left it where it lay for the moment and took down not his quiver, but one of the special ones lined with maille. The ones Uncle Thorin used for the diamond-tips.

Kíli had sworn on his eyes not to touch them. However, some things were worth his eyes. He took down one of the large arrows. Its tip shimmered, pure cut diamond, sharp enough to pierce mountain giants. The rest of the head was only steel, but a secret alloy that would not rust and refused to dull. Even the shafts were a lightweight metal that only appeared in the rarest of veins and could be worked by perhaps three specialists.

He only took one of the arrows, but hid it between several of his usual ones. Still, he looked over his shoulder every moment. If Thorin caught him, the game would be up, and he would never leave the house again.

Armed, he tiptoed upstairs and dressed for the cold. Nobody in Ered Luin had listened to them, but he had met the thain of the Hobbits a few times, and the fellow seemed reasonable and clever, if a bit odd. Kíli gathered some extra warm things for Ori, and made his plan in his head.

Thorin, through some mercy, had slept through cock-crow. Kíli paused outside his door and heard him snoring. He gave silent thanks to Aulë for ale and Mr. Balin, and crept downstairs and past Mum, who didn't look up from her book and coffee as she waved him out the door, and Kíli ran for Ori's house so fast his lungs burned.

The goat stood un-milked and leaking, and bleated at him for relief. Kíli saw no bucket, though, and could only pat her on the head. The streets were mostly empty so early, but he still waited for a milk-seller and a bread lady to clear the way before he took the diamond-tip from his quiver. Near the fletching, he tied a thin hemp rope that, he hoped, would be enough to hold him. And Ori. One at a time, at least. He closed his eyes and gave silent prayer to any deity that cared to listen that his aim would hold true.

The bow felt stiff. Then, it _was_ a bit large, and the draw better suited to Uncle or Mr. Dwalin. Kíli fitted the arrow against the string and drew to his cheek, and struggled from there to draw to the back of his ear. Despite his wobbly arm, he aimed for the house's rafters, where the roof overlapped the walls. A burn began in his shoulder and inched towards his elbow, but his strength overwhelmed that of the bowstring, bit by tremulous bit, his slippery fingers all but on fire---

He sinned. Ori's window _exploded_. Ori screamed.

" _Ori!_ " Kíli jumped for the dangling tail of the rope, hoping and praying he hadn't bollocksed the entire plan in the worst imaginable way. He fell to his knees when Ori leaned out the window's remains, covered in sweat, both eyes blackened and swollen half shut.

" _What the bloody arse are you doing?_ "

" _Getting you out of here!_ "

"You missed my head by a finger's width! Me comb's part of the other room now! What _is_ that thing?"

"Never mind! Get down here! We're going to the Shire!"

"What in Durin's name is all the fuss, boy?" Rori said, and Ori yelped.

"Jump!" Kíli said, and to his surprise, Ori clambered out the window and clung to the sill with one hand, dangling there in his nightshirt, clutching his vellum. Rori grabbed Ori's wrist, and Ori landed with a yelp in the middle of the crate splinters.

"You're trying to kill me, you bastard!" he said as Kíli hauled him to his feet. "I should've taken me chances with Da!"

"Come on!" Kíli dragged him toward the great road leading to the surface, and the ponies. He could already hear the steady tromp of a constable's boots coming closer, no surprise at all the screaming, and Rori would no doubt have Thorin and Mum in arms as soon as he could make himself presentable.

Between an abandoned henhouse and an old shed, Kíli shoved the bag of his spare clothing in Ori's arms. "Get dressed. We don't want to draw attention."

Ori scowled at the bag as much as his black eyes would let him. His nose stood at a funny angle, too. Kíli sat on a rotting straw pile and tapped the heel of his boot in the dirt, lest he charge back to Ori's house and stuff a whole quiverful of arrows down Rori's worthless throat.

"Thank you," Ori said.

He upturned the bag and started pulling on clothes that turned out to be larger on him than Kíli expected. Ori was short and slight, but without his layers of jumpers and scarves and other ragged things, there was hardly anything to him. Kíli bit his lip as Ori punched a precise hole in his belt a good six inches in from its nearest neighbor, using the point of one of Kíli's arrows.

"How long's your mam been sick?" he said as Ori tightened it above his hips.

"A while."

Longer than that, Kíli guessed. Ori looked like he'd not eaten in months. The Shire would have food, though, and lots of it. He'd gone there once with Thorin and Mum and Fíli for some celebration they'd been invited to, and by the fourth meal their first day, he'd just lain in the grass and wanted to die.

Finally, with the help of a bit of spare rope, as well as the bowstring, they got Ori dressed. Kíli's old jumper reached his knees, with nothing but bone to fill it out up top. Kíli rested their foreheads together a moment, gave Ori a brief kiss (he really did enjoy kissing Ori, and hoped the thain would let them do it rather a lot), and led him into the street. Quite a few more people had come out, including some grocers and probably Mum and Thorin. They hurried above ground, and Kíli saddled his pony, Myrtle, and a small, quiet mare named Penny, whom the stablemaster usually reserved for children.

"We'll be there by nightfall," he said when he got Ori mounted. "Just ride next to me."

"My eyes hurt, and I've got a headache."

"They'll have something for it in the Shire. Everything'll be okay when we get there."

"Are you sure we'll get there?"

Kíli nodded. If they didn't, what was going to happen to Ori? Kíli couldn't imagine not having his friend there. It would be as bad as losing his brother, but with a whole different piece of his heart ripped away.

"Come on." He patted Penny, then mounted Myrtle and set off away from home, a bitter mountain wind winding down between his coat and chin.

#

Far above, the clouds churned white with unfallen snow, too heavy to give any indication of the time. Kíli only knew Ered Luin lay too far behind to turn back. The Shire looked so close on maps, but with only him and Ori, it might as well have been Erebor. He looked at Ori, whose eyes had swollen shut in the cold and who gripped Penny's mane like a ten-year-old, and he reined Myrtle in.

Kíli took both ponies by the reins and walked them down the mountain path. With any luck, a Hobbit patrol would find them. Until then, though, all of Ori's unbruised bits had gone white, save his bluish, trembling lips. He needed warmth, and soon.

From the corner of his eye, Kíli spied a tree leaning over the edge of the path, further than the rest of its half-frozen kin. He laughed in triumph when he saw a shadowy hollow beneath its roots, with plenty of room for two boys and a small fire. He pulled Ori down from Penny's back and hugged him, bouncing up and down.

"Are we at the Shire?" Ori put his hands behind Kíli's shoulders. "Is there food?"

Kíli's mood dimmed at the thought of a good meal. Still, he guided Ori inside, careful not to let him bump his head. He hitched the ponies to a large, exposed root, and broke off a number of dry branches. They burned his bare fingertips when they snapped, but it was only the cold. That done, he crawled inside with his armload and set a kindling pile, and after a minute with flint and steel, he had a small, crackling fire, enough to thaw his hands. A few more minutes and some larger branches, and he could have cooked a rabbit over it were they not warm and safe in their burrows.

Ori, however, was neither warm nor safe. Kíli shushed his shivering and pulled him underneath his jumper. Mum would not be happy with him for stretching it so, but some things were more important. He rested his cheek on Ori's head and pursed his mouth, hating the shadows dancing on the walls in the orange firelight simply because they were there and Uncle Thorin was not.

He was king. He should have _listened_ all the times Kíli said Rori was a terrible man and Ori needed to live with Dori. Now, the two of them were stuck beneath a tree, somewhere between home and the Shire, with only a tiny fire and a few bits of clothing between Ori and freezing to death.

Kíli kissed him on the head. "We'll make it. As soon as you warm up, I promise we'll make it."

Ori nodded beneath Kíli's jumper, bits of his hair poking through the stretched stitches. He wracked with coughing. Kíli, whose eyes were starting to burn, wafted some of the fire's smoke towards the door as well as he could with his hands, but it only swirled around. It was awfully burny for smoke. Even his fingers had gone red and painful where he broke off the mostly dead branches.

To distract them, he picked up the vellum book from where Ori had dropped it. "Could I have a look at your pictures?"

Ori shrugged. "They're no good."

"They're always good. What are you always drawing when I'm practicing my---"

Kíli broke off coughing until he spat out a mouthful of goo. Under his jumper, Ori coughed again, longer and harder until he took in a great, wheezing breath like someone having a panting-sickness attack. The smoke in their little cave seemed as dense as a blizzard, and Ori's breathing grew thicker and wetter with every inhale. Kíli pulled him out of his jumper to get a look at him. His mouth hung open, red and lined with capillaries like his skin, his tongue swollen, and he curled into a ball as soon as Kíli put him on his back.

Kíli bit his lip and poked his head outside. Snow fell in fat, wet clumps that silenced the world and seared his skin like embers. He hurried to wipe his face, but yelped as soon as his jumper touched his skin. Behind him, Ori's breathing broke to a long, horrible cough, and a rattle deep inside his chest--and more wet, shallow breathing, thank all the gods. But it couldn't last much longer. Kíli coughed into his sleeve and felt his own chest rattle. And very quietly, so Ori wouldn't hear, he started to cry.

He crawled back inside and curled up behind Ori, holding him. If they were going to die, then at least Ori would die knowing someone in the world loved him enough to try to save him from his father.

A soft sound caught his attention, a clopping of hooves. The ponies had got loose. But, no. It was coming closer. Hobbits, surely! Ori retched with coughs before Kíli could call for help, and the hoofbeats stopped. Kíli held still, apart from his own coughing fit (it felt like a dragon rending him to scraps), as a terrible figure too great to be a Hobbit hunched in the cave mouth.

"Great Aulë, they've gone and set a fire with lacquer tree wood!" Uncle Thorin wrapped a cloth over his face and slid inside to stomp the fire to nothing. He grabbed Ori by the foot and dragged him outside. "Take him and go!"

"What about their ponies?" Mr. Dwalin said as Thorin got Kíli's leg. Kíli kicked, but could only manage a flop. He grabbed Ori's vellum just in time.

"We'll send the stablemaster's boys. Kíli?" Thorin cradled Kíli like a child. "Say something, lad."

So Kíli coughed in his face.

He just caught a glimpse of Mr. Dwalin galloping off with Ori, a bearskin wrapped around the both of them, before Thorin got the two of them mounted and wrapped them in another skin. Kíli's head churned when Thorin's pony charged forward. He had never ridden at such a speed, and was in no state to enjoy it, as he proved all over the outside of the bearskin a moment later.

"That's it, my dear," Thorin said, which was odd, as he had not called Kíli his dear since the time Fíli accidentally ran him through the shoulder with a short spear. "Get all that cack out. The two of you'll be in sickbed for months."

Kíli only coughed up a mouthful of blood-tinged slime and spat it onto the snowy road.

#

No-one _ever_ rode the ponies inside. But Thorin and Mr. Dwalin went right past the stables with only a shout to get Myrtle and Penny, and straight into the mountain. Two guards drew their swords, and Thorin's pony reared. Kíli cried out as his insides seemed to shift. Ori only wheezed.

"Clear a path," Thorin said, and rode straight between the guards, Mr. Dwalin right behind.

Kíli squinted out of the bearskin at the road and the people screaming as they galloped through. His stomach wobbled, and he puked a wash of bile and blackened blood down the bearskin and Uncle Thorin. Only outside Ori's house did they jerk to a halt, both ponies snorting and tossing their heads.

"No. . . ," Kíli said. His voice felt like knives. Mr. Dwalin got down and picked up Ori, who had blood running from his nose, and set for the door. Kíli struggled to reach out, and got his fingers snarled in Mr. Dwalin's hair.

"Let him go," Thorin said, untangling Kíli's fingers. "Mahal's beard, his eyes are already black."

"His da. . . ."

Kíli slumped against Uncle Thorin. Breathing was hard enough. Speaking might as well have got them to the Shire. He shuddered and pressed his face against Thorin's chest.

Thorin rubbed his back. "Rori blacked his eyes?"

Kíli nodded. He was pretty sure he nodded. It hurt too much to move.

"Take him to my home," Uncle Thorin said. "Then I think we need to speak with Rori."

#

For the first week, maybe two, Kíli mostly only had a vague awareness of being in the best bedroom--he supposed Mr. Balin had moved to his room or something. Ori lay next to him, a wheezing lump of bone and scant shivering flesh, who stained the pillowcases with blood from his eyes and nose, and from the quickly yellowing sludge he coughed up. When Kíli had the strength, he held Ori to keep him warm, though mostly he just lay still and tried to save his energy to cough up his own disgusting lumps of blood and goo and pus.

He woke now and then to Mum or Thorin sitting next to him and telling him about the day, or giving him a cool sponge-bath that felt lovely on his peeling skin, or telling a story. Sometimes Fíli showed up to brag about something. Kíli supposed he could get revenge later, maybe with Fíli's hand in some warm water while he slept, or a good frig in his bed. If nothing else, being sick enough for the doctor to come three times a day gave him plenty of time to plot (when he wasn't asleep, or too ill to care).

And Dori came to see Ori every day. Dori was a nice fellow, if a bit prissy. And very odd where Ori was concerned. He'd always been. Kíli struggled to stay awake as Dori sat beside the bed and stroked Ori's hair like he was a child.

"There's my sweet little boy," he said, his voice soft and low, like Kíli's memories of his father. "You're finally coming to live with me, when you're well enough. I've wanted this since you were---"

He noticed Kíli watching and stopped. "Are you feeling any better, Master Kíli?"

"Hn."

Dori chuckled. "I can't approve your methods, but I'm in your debt for getting Ori and my mother, rest her, out of that house." He bowed his head a moment, then went back to his quiet fuss over Ori.

Kíli scowled as much as his headache would allow. He coughed into his pillow a long moment before he could speak. "Are you Ori's father?"

Dori sat up and straightened his shoulders. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

Kíli's chest hurt too much to talk anymore, but he scooted close enough to put an arm around Ori's waist and glare at Dori, warning him to take care, else they really _would_ go to the Shire and stay there forever. Nobody was allowed to hurt Ori ever again.

To his surprise, Dori put a hand on his head. "You're always welcome, lad. Only, do please stay out of my workroom. I've got some very delicate things in there, and I'm afraid your uncle's told me all about his study."

Which served to keep Kíli under the blankets for most of the rest of the day.

#

Winter's pervasive chill seemed very far away by the time Ori was well enough to go home--his new home--and Kíli went back to his own room. He tossed and turned his first night, still coughing a little but without anything disgusting as a result. He couldn't sleep without Ori next to him. Or Uncle Thorin snoring in a chair next to the bed to make sure they didn't, as he put it, "get up to the sorts of things youngsters do."

Which, frankly, took away a lot of the fun of being sick.

Finally, he crawled out of bed. It still felt funny to stand up, like the time he and Fíli got into all the half-finished ale tankards at a banquet and his head wanted to float off like a paper balloon (right before he passed out and nearly choked to death on his own puke, which had made him terribly famous among his friends for a while). He held onto the cool stone wall all the way down the hallway. Through Fíli's door, he heard sleepy muttering, and had to squeeze down an urge to whap Fíli in the head with a pillow. If nothing else, he was in no fit state to run, and Fíli had just that day come in to show him a bottle of quinine he had bought to sneak into Uncle Thorin's coffee as a joke.

He tiptoed past Mum's room. She was still unbearable, calling Kíli her brave little hero and kissing him and insisting on dragging him into hugs when all he wanted to do was go limp. She was convinced there was something great and noble and wonderful in rescuing Ori from his wretch of a father, who had left his poor mother to die in squalor. Not that she had forgiven Kíli's punishment for the rug in Thorin's study, but some things could not be helped.

Outside Thorin's room, he stopped. Soft snores came from within. Good. Kíli slipped inside and burrowed under the covers. It had been a good 20 years, maybe more, since he had crawled into anyone's bed but Fíli's, and the last thing he needed was to get caught now---

Thorin pulled him into a hug. "I wondered when you'd be in," he said, his voice heavy and his burr thick with sleep.

Kíli hid his face in Thorin's chest. "Hello, Uncle."

"Are you here to sleep or talk? Speak quick, or I'll decide for you."

He needed sleep. But he had questions, things he hadn't wanted to ask in front of Ori. He sighed and wrapped his arms around Thorin like a child.

"Why didn't you believe me all the times I said Rori was hurting Ori?"

Thorin sighed and rubbed his face against his pillow. "Because there was nothing I could see of it, lad. I even asked Rori and Ori both if all was right at home. Rori always took a rough hand with his boys. When Ori came along, I worried, but I hoped with the two of you to play with, he'd be about enough I could keep an eye on him." He kissed the top of Kíli's head. "I'll ask you not to touch the diamond-tips again, but thank you for taking up where I fell slack."

"Ori is Dori's son, isn't he?"

"Go to sleep."

"Hmph." Kíli worried the covers up to his ear, wondering if anyone would ever give him a straight answer. "Could I visit Ori in the morning?"

"We'll see how you feel. Now sleep!"

He woke at cock-crow, nestled against Thorin's side, better rested than he had been in a very long time. Still, Thorin opened an eye and growled when Kíli coughed a wet spot onto his nightshirt.

"As soon as high summer arrives, I'm sending all three of you boys out with a tutor to learn what trees to burn, and what to stay clear of."

"Yes, sir."

"Off with you." Thorin ruffled Kíli's hair. "You need a proper bath, disgusting child."

Kíli stuck his tongue out, and Thorin chuckled. Kíli made his way back to his room and settled in with a thick, gory book about a very old battle against the Elves his forefathers had waged for sixteen days and nights, hardly stopping to piss. He could not help but wonder if Ori would like to draw the glorious image of Rhóin Bloodbeard holding high the head of the Sindar captain, her blood running from his mouth and staining his yellow beard the deepest of red---

" _Kíli!_ I've got your bath ready!" Mum called. "Hurry so you can finish while breakfast is still hot!"

For a moment, Kíli wondered where he could get a few more lacquer tree branches, if only so he could be left in peace.

Between Mum scrubbing him like a brat 'til he shoved his hands over his balls and screamed for privacy, and having to sit at the table to eat a proper hot breakfast, Kíli spent the rest of the morning asleep. (Being well again after being sick for so very long, it seemed, was quite the job.) He woke a bit after lunchtime to find Fíli's three-legged cat, Kanj, curled against him. Kíli spent a while stroking her, and feeding her bits of bread and cheese from the tray Mum brought him (thought Kanj didn't think much of the scullery maid's very good pickled vegetables).

He still had Kanj and a bit of cheese on his lap when Thorin looked in. He lifted an eyebrow at Kíli making Kanj beg for nibbles.

"Don't let your mother see you doing that. I've come across mine explosions less eruptive than that moggy's back end." Thorin sat in the chair across from Kíli's bed while Kíli laughed and petted Kanj. "Did you still want to visit Ori today?"

"You know I do!"

Thorin nodded. "I've business with his brother. I thought you might like to accompany me."

Kíli hugged Kanj--Kanj whined--and he jumped out of bed to put on his boots. Thorin hurried to steady him.

"I'm not yet due! You can have two minutes to look presentable and not knock your head in the process." Thorin pulled Kíli to his full height. "You know the rules, of course."

"I still want to kiss him."

"You had ample time to get your fill."

"We were too sick to do anything, and then you or Mum or Dori or Fíli were here all the time! I'm not kissing him in front of my brother!"

"You're not what?" Fíli poked his head into the room, chewing an apple. "I didn't get all that."

" _Out!_ " Kíli said as Thorin said, "Mind your business, and wipe your chin."

Kíli sighed and sat on his bed. Thorin looked as though he were fighting one of his rare, soft laughs, and helped him with his boots.

"You've got a long life ahead of you, if you take a bit of care, my dear. There's plenty of time for kisses yet."

Uncle Thorin, obviously, had never kissed _anyone_.

The walk to Dori's house seemed even longer than a ride to the Shire. Worse, within a few minutes, Kíli started coughing again, and had to lean against Uncle Thorin, who picked him up like a bride and carried him through the streets. Kíli shut his eyes so he would not have to see anyone watching him hold onto Thorin's neck and panting to get his breath.

Still, he felt a bit better when he saw Dori's house. Where Rori's had been plain and better suited to the pauper he became, Dori's was. . . really rather hideous. The front looked more lapis and amethyst than granite. But it was a wealthy merchant and master jeweler's home, and around the side a servant curried Ori's milk goat, who had turned fat and sleek and wore a pretty blue collar. If a goat could be treated so well, maybe Ori would grow full and fat enough to fill out a proper jumper.

Thorin set Kíli down by the door and kept a hand on his shoulder to steady him. A gentleman's man answered and took them to a fussy little parlor with jeweled daggers lined up on the walls.

"Could I go see Ori?" Kíli said before the man could take his leave to fetch Dori.

"Kíli!" Thorin said.

"Oh, I don't see why not," Dori said, strolling in. "Thorin, always a pleasure. Quite a surprise, but truly a pleasure."

Kíli looked sidelong at Thorin, who only nodded to Dori. "The same. Kíli, go on. Leave us be."

Kíli was going to have _words_ with his uncle about making up stories only so one or the other of them could go and see his friends.

The gentleman's man took him upstairs, to a door with an amethyst trefoil inlaid in the bright yellow wood. The man knocked twice, and Ori answered, his voice still weak, "Come in"

Kíli tore into the room with all he had and leapt onto the bed. Ori yelped and hid his face in a book. Kíli rolled onto his back on the quilt and laughed, and laughed harder when Ori whacked him with the book.

"You git! I thought you were an invasion!"

"I _am_ an invasion! Haven't you ever listened to my mum?"

Ori rolled his eyes and leaned back against his small mountain of pillows. He needed a minute to catch his breath. Kíli took the chance to kick off his boots and shed his jumper, and climb under the thick, lovely blankets with Ori, who blushed.

"I couldn't sleep last night," he said, averting his eyes. "I missed you."

"I had to sleep with Uncle."

"I wish Dori would let you stay."

Kíli wondered if Ori knew about Dori being his father. From the way everyone acted about it, though, it seemed like something he probably shouldn't bring up until Ori did. So he put his head on Ori's shoulder, like they had done while talking about all the great battles they would see together when they grew up, and closed his eyes and let himself be contented.

Ori showed him his new drawing book, which was real paper, and his drawing pencils. "And Dori's going to get me an art tutor," Ori said, grinning. "And he says I've got potential as a wordsmith, too, so he's going to get me lessons as one of those!"

Kíli grinned, too. He had never seen Ori so happy. Though it also hurt a little. All he was good for was trouble, and being the useless second prince. There was no real good for anyone in his position unless Fíli died or ran off with a Hobbit lady, and then, well, he wasn't sure he even _wanted_ to be crown prince. Where was the fun in being as serious and miserable and stoic as Uncle Thorin?

But where the hell did that leave him?

Ori bit his lip and bumped his forehead to Kíli's. "Would you like to see my vellum? I mean, you saved it from the Death Cave," as they had taken to calling the hollow under the lacquer tree. "Otherwise, it might have got eaten by rabbits. Or Hobbits!"

"I've seen your vellum."

"I mean the other bits. The ones from when you were doing your archery."

Kíli licked the tip of Ori's nose. "Aye. But you had best not have drawn me as a bloody Elf."

"Then don't lick me again!" Ori wiped his nose with his sleeve as he opened a drawer next to his bed and took out his old, uneven book. Next to his new one, with its embossed cover and his name written in calligraphic runes, it looked as sad as his old house, his old sweater, and his old life.

But inside, it was still part of Ori.

"Don't laugh," Ori said as he opened the book. He refused to look at Kíli as he flipped through, gripping a pencil as though it might rescue him from retribution. Taking a deep breath, he laid the open book on Kíli's lap.

Kíli couldn't find anything to say. It was a picture of him in the crown of the King under the Mountain, loosing his arrows at some unseen foe, with Ori next to him, wearing a smaller crown and battling with his slingshot. Without looking at him, Ori reached over to turn a few pages until he got to a drawing of King Kíli standing atop a mound of dead Hobbits, his bow thrust high, with the banner _KING OF THE SHIRE_ brandished across the bottom.

"I know it's silly." Ori squirmed. "But I can't help it. You're so majestic. And then you went and saved me like something in a book, and I don't think I'll ever see you as anything else."

Kíli's jaw dropped. He knew damned good and well he would be the worst king imaginable, even worse than Smaug, who liked to _eat_ Dwarves. But his heart fluttered, and it _would_ be kind of nice to have Ori there as queen. . . king. . . quing. . . someone in a crown to kiss. There were so many wonderful things to say, so much thanks and praise and gratitude and. . . and really big _like_ -like that Kíli didn't know where to start, and it all wanted to bubble up through his mouth at once.

So he snatched Ori's pencil instead.

"Oi! I need that!"

"Too bad." Kíli scribbled a crowned stick figure in the corner of the Shire King picture and wrote _Queen Ori_ next to it. "What d'you think about that?"

"Ha." Still, Ori turned pink and glanced between Kíli and the page. "I'll kiss you for a pencil."

And he did.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was based on an RP between Sushi and Seashadows, though it's dramatically different from the original form. For one, this time nobody got poison ivy up his bum.
> 
> Sushi did the writing here, while Sea provided plenty of input and beta read. That's why the writing style may not match up to Sea's style. (Sushi hasn't gotten around to importing any of her work from elsewhere because she's lazy.)
> 
> Kanj, apparently, means "to hop."
> 
> Remember, parents, keep your Dwarven superweapons under lock and key!


End file.
